


Loved

by TheRantDragon



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 03:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17593505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRantDragon/pseuds/TheRantDragon
Summary: She was completely fine, the bullet had missed all of her vital organs.





	Loved

**Author's Note:**

> I'm finding all the nice ficlets I've posted to my Tumblr exclusively over the years, and posting them here. Before they get lost to the void and/or purged. This place needs more Spitfire/Young Justice fic of good quality, I'd like to contribute to that in any way I can.

“Guys, _please_ ,” Artemis pleaded, voice low and raspy because her throat was dry and it wouldn’t carry more than a whisper across the expanse of her cramped hospital room. “The nurses are going to throw you all out.”

And they’d deserve it too, because she thought they were all acting pretty ridiculous trying to squeeze into her room like a bunch of clowns into an undersized car. There was just a whole lot of jostling and elbowing and complaining (most of it reaching her ears in the familiar voice of a certain redhead), and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what all the fuss was about.

She was completely _fine_ , the bullet had missed all of her vital organs.

The entire Team was there, and her mom, and even Dinah and Ollie, with his perfectly combed mustache and what appeared to be a bouquet of flowers in one of his hands. He was peering at her worriedly over the heads of her teammates, and if Artemis weren’t so drugged and fuzzy-headed, she would have rolled her eyes at all of them; she’d already tried that once when she’d first came too and her mother had offered to help her eat. The room hadn’t stopped spinning for five whole minutes after that, and the archer had decided it wasn’t worth the gesture.

“Sorry,” Megan apologized with a slight smile. She used her powers to disentangle herself from the group of tightly pressed bodies and floated airily over to the left side of Artemis’s bed. “But we’re just so glad that you’re okay!”

“Hey, no fair!” Wally groused at the martian’s blatant cheating, and in his distraction Dick elbowed him aside and stood grinning behind his sunglasses at the foot of the bed.

“Feelin’ the aster, Artemis?”

She blinked, feeling a little slow through her drug haze. She could understand them all fine, could keep up with the conversation, but it all seemed so far away, so detached, as if her eyes were merely a window she was peering at them all through and she wasn’t physically there.

_Drugs are bad_ , she thought out of nowhere.

Something brushed against the edges of her mind– not invasive, just prodding a bit on the surface, and Megan stifled a smile behind one of her hands.

“ _Oh_ , Artemis is a little… out of it.”

“ _Meeeeegs_ ,” the archer complained, lids feeling heavy as she sent her supposed earth sister a glare. She felt pinkness staining her cheeks at having her obvious lack of complete coherency broadcasted to everyone. She hated feeling like the static tv screen in Mount Justice; she had been taught to never be caught in a vulnerable state, and well, having morphine pumping through your veins didn’t exactly leave you in the kind of state that would allow for quick exits through ten story windows.

Not that she felt any imminent danger with all of them surrounding her… then again, that could just be the drugs making her not care.

“Well it’s not like we needed a _psychic_ to tell us that, I mean, look at my girl, she’s _way_ too chill,” Zatanna said, pushing her way forward with one of her hands on her hips. She smirked at Artemis. “I could do a spell for you, make things a little less fuzzy, if you’d like?”

The archer contemplated it. That did actually sound like a really great idea, but she figured her morphine induced stupor was the only thing keeping her from strangling them all for fussing over her so much. She shook her head.

“No thanks. You guys are easier to deal with when drugs are involved.” Translation: _it’s for your own good_.

Several of them snickered.

“But seriously, Artemis, glad to see you’re okay,” Raquel said with a smile.

“Indeed. You had us quite worried,” Kaldur added. The Atlantean had opted to stand near Paula Crock, who had wheeled herself out of harm’s way when the goof troop had started trying to pile into the room like a bunch of animals. The archer couldn’t help but smirk; so typical for him to be the only one to take the mature and responsible choice of _not_ causing a scene.

“We knew you’d be alright, though,” Conner said confidently, crossing his arms in front of his chest with a smile.

“Well, _most_ of us did,” Zatanna added, casting a sly glance at the team’s resident speedster, who, during all the distraction of conversation, had edged much closer to Artemis’s position than she’d expected. Her eyebrows rose in surprise at his sudden proximity to the right side of her bed, the weathered knees of his blue jeans just barely brushing the sheets that tucked beneath the mattress. He seemed oblivious to the magician’s words, the fingers of his left hand absently brushing across the soft threads a few inches from where her hand rested, IV needle taped carefully across the back.

Artemis let her befuddled grey eyes flick up to his freckled face, only to see his brow creased in some form of worry; he wasn’t looking at her, instead studying the needle buried inside her skin. She frowned deeply, twitching her fingers; the action caused him to draw his hand away and snap back into reality, and for the briefest of moments, their eyes met.

She flushed for unknown reasons. _Stupid drugs…_

Someone cleared their throat, and the two teens turned crimson and looked away from each other.

“ _Anyway…_ ” Dick drawled out, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face knowingly; he jammed his thumb in Wally’s direction. “Romeo here was pacing a trench in the lobby.”

_“Dude!”_

“He almost used his super speed a few times,” Raquel added with a devious smirk, hip cocked.

“It’s true,” Conner said boredly.

“Alright, alright, old people coming through!” Ollie burst out suddenly, though the amusement was clear in his tone as he and Dinah squirmed their way through the throng of teenagers. Artemis was thankful for the distraction; she wasn’t exactly in a great state of mind to be dodging the Team’s jabs at her and Wally’s… whatever the hell it was. She didn’t feel like thinking about _that_ right then, so instead focused on her mentor and Dinah as they made their way to her.

“How are you doing, Artemis?” Dinah asked gently, bending over to brush some of the hair out of the archer’s face. She was thankful for the gesture; the loose hairs tickling her forehead had been driving her nuts, but her limbs felt too heavy to bother with pushing them out of the way herself. The older woman smirked. “They’ve got you drugged pretty thoroughly, so I’m guessing you’re feeling pretty good, huh?”

Artemis couldn’t help but smirk. “Only grade A drugs here, none of that shit stuff.”

Ollie, who had previously been adding his flowers to the veritable pile of them that practically consumed an entire corner of her hospital room, came over and, completely unexpectedly, bent to press a very whiskery kiss to Artemis’s hot forehead. She stiffened a little at the gesture, her mouth falling open just a tad in bewilderment.

“Sorry, but we really can’t stay long, kiddo, we just wanted to give you those and see you awake,” Ollie said, affectionately patting her head. And then, before Artemis could muster up the good sense to feel annoyed by the childish gesture, they hugged her. Both of them, Dinah and Ollie, each of them on either side of her, wrapped their arms around her in a hug that was gentle so as not to aggravate the wound in abdomen.

She stiffened again in their embrace, her arms automatically coming up to hesitantly rest on their forearms. Their warmth enveloped her, and when she heard Ollie say, “We’re so glad you’re okay,” somewhere near her ear, a lump formed in her throat.

Artemis let her stormy eyes sweep over the tiny room and everyone crammed into it– her mom, her Team… her _family_. It hit her then, somehow, how worried she must have had them all, that she’d been bleeding and unconscious and gone through surgery, how uncertain they must have all been as they waited to find out if she’d pull through or not. And of _course_ she’d pull through, but they’d still been worried enough to shove themselves into her room the moment they’d allowed visitors.

Something hot and wet pooled on her lower lids and slid down her cheeks, and she realized with horror that she was crying.

“Artemis,” came her mother’s worried voice. “Why are you crying, are you hurting?”

Artemis shook her head, fingers twisting into the fabric of Ollie and Dinah’s sleeves when they attempted to pull away in fear that they’d caused her some sort of pain. She shook her head hard, heedless of the spinning it caused her vision, and through the tears and the disorientation, she glanced at them all again, their concern, the way they were all pushing toward her like they wanted to comfort her.

“No, you’re all just… so _ridiculous_ ,” she rasped out at them, emotion in her voice, more tears leaking out. And she felt idiotic, breaking down like this, would blame it on the drugs later when she had the chance to defend herself against the teasing she was sure to come (from at least Dick and Wally, she’d bet).

They were all there, then. Impossibly, recklessly, they all piled around her as best they could and formed a massive, awkward hug, until she felt smothered by limbs and body heat.

And there, still sitting on the sidelines and watching it all take place, was Paula Crock, with tears clinging to her own lids and a huge smile on her weathered face. Artemis had to wonder, as she looked away and closed her eyes tight and pressed her face into Wally’s soft blue shirt, when the Crock women had turned into such emotional saps.

It was stupid; _they_ were all stupid.

But she loved every one of them… and maybe they loved her, too.


End file.
